Maersk alters W Africa feeder loop again

Thursday, November 01, 2012

The ocean carrier Maersk Line has added a new northbound port call at Lome, Togo, and a fifth vessel to its weekly WAF6 service between hub ports in the West Mediterranean and West Africa.
Roundtrip voyage time on the WAF6 has increased from 28 days to 35 days, and transit times northbound have been increased by about seven days, now taking 18 days between Douala, Cameroon, and Maersk’s West-Mediterranean hubs in Tangiers and Algeciras. American Shipper reported Sept. 6 that Maersk truncated the loop, converting the former North Europe and Mediterranean-to-West Africa WAF6 service into an exclusive West Africa feeder based on Maersk’s West-Mediterranean hubs in Tangiers, Morocco and Algeciras, Spain. At that time, the carrier also revised two of its other Europe-to-West Africa services, slowing the WAF2 and further speeding up the WAF3 (reported by American Shipper Sept. 4). Since then, Maersk has also speeded up its WAF7 from 28 days to 21 days roundtrip (reported by American Shipper Oct. 11).
The revised rotation of the WAF6 loop is Tangiers, Algeciras, Apapa, Douala, Lome, and Tangiers. The service is currently operated with five vessels (four from subsidiary line Safmarine and one from Maersk) with an average capacity of 2,478 TEUs.
Since the termination of Maersk’s WAF10 service (reported by American Shipper July 20), Maersk operates a total of 10 direct weekly services between Tangiers/Algeciras and West Africa including the WAF6, and the others being its WAF1, WAF2, WAF3, WAF5, WAF7, WAF8, WAF9, WAF11 and WAF13 loops. Of them, the WAF2 similarly calls Lome (southbound) and, in addition the WAF3 calls at Apapa. None of the other WAF loops, however, call at Douala. - ComPair Data, Ben Meyer